Ice

by Ulla-lena Lundberg

  Now all of them move towards the grave. Pushing and crowding are permissible at such times. No one thinks about priorities and status. When the coffin is lowered, which those standing farther away cannot even see, a wail goes up like a flame. The crowd surges, cries are heard above the weeping, people grab hold of one another, women call out, “No! No!” Those standing close to Mona try to save her, they sob loudly and try to draw her along, but even in the tightly packed crowd at the grave, she manages to parry their efforts and withdraw. Stiff and cold, she stands there and refuses to cooperate on their terms, strives only for distance.

  Higher up in the churchyard, where she can see, is Cecilia. Why can’t they leave the pastor’s wife in peace? Don’t they understand that she’s not like them? Why can’t they respect the fact that she needs air between herself and the world? The one she feels sorriest for is Sanna, who is small and short and can’t see a thing among all these large, black people crowded around her. She is scared to death and is crying out loud with open mouth. Cecilia can see Mona saying, “Quiet, Sanna!” She moves towards them, but then Grandmother Hellén works her way through the crowd and takes Sanna’s hand. No one hears, but what she says is, “Don’t be afraid. This will be over soon and then we’ll go home.”

  But it doesn’t go that quickly, because on the Örlands the custom is to fill in the grave while the widow stands at its edge and watches the coffin disappear beneath the soil of the churchyard. So thin it is, she thinks again. A miracle that anything can grow in it. Almost laughs out loud—a miracle, yes indeed. Sanna cries loudly, pushed dangerously close to the hole. Soon they’ll throw her in and shovel dirt on her until she dies!

  Maybe I shouldn’t have brought Sanna with me, Mona thinks, distractedly. She floats a little, loses contact with the ground a bit, hears nothing even though they’re all making so much noise. The veil is good. She’d like to wear it always. No one can see you, it doesn’t matter that you’re not here. She feels nothing, everything slips and slides away, and just then her mother takes her under one arm, Sanna is still screaming, and her mother gives her a little shake. “Mona! They’re starting to go! What an ordeal! Poor Sanna!”

  Through her veil she sees that several of the women curtsey to her before they turn to go. The men bow reluctantly, the way they do at the Communion table. She nods back, as is proper. “Goodbye. Thank you.” Quite clearly. Petter’s family stands by the grave, their arms around each other. Skog is with them, Berg by himself, near Mona and Sanna and Mrs Hellén. Sorrow or just fear? What is it he’s supposed to say? What should he do? Adele Bergman knows. She works her way to Mona. “Dear heart! God give you strength! We are all crushed. Such grief.”

  “Yes,” Mona says. “Thank you.” She extends her hand in its black glove. Goodbye. Adele: “You’ll stay here with us! We can talk more later. Dear girl!” She walks away, bent over, black hat with veil among the women’s shiny black silk shawls. The men in black below their freezing heads, only putting on their fur hats after passing through the churchyard gate. While they were inside the church, the wind freshened and then steadily increased out in the churchyard. The dry grave soil whirled up into people’s eyes, and now the wind is whistling ominously and the wreaths are flapping and rustling, the soil left over from filling the grave is being swept away like smoke. Everyone needs to get home while it’s still light, and the sacramental wind cuts right through their coats!

  It exceeds even Mona’s ability to treat five hundred people to funeral coffee. The refreshments are for family. Even the very dearest Örlanders leave. The organist takes her hand at the grave, unable to say anything at all, but she thanks him in a clear voice for his wonderful singing and lovely words, which she would like to have a copy of, and for his beautiful playing during the whole, long ceremony. The verger’s dignity has never suited him better as he says, “The funeral was a great tribute to you both. And this evening, Signe and I will do the milking.” “Thank you,” she says again. “Thank you for all your trouble. The duties of a verger are no easy task under these circumstances!” He moves on and says goodbye to the Kummels and the priests, while Signe, waiting down by the gate, doesn’t think she’s capable of walking up and taking her leave.

  It is dreadfully cold, the gale cuts right through bone and marrow. In order to survive, they must abandon the dead priest to the earth and move towards the parsonage as quickly as decency permits. Hellén, a practical man, speaks for everyone. “Now we should go. It was a fine funeral, but the longest one I’ve ever seen. Look at Sanna! Poor little thing is blue with cold!”

  Everyone looks at Sanna, half dead. Grandfather Hellén lifts her up and starts walking, and Mona follows. Sanna is what she still has, and now she lives for the sake of Sanna and Lillus. And then the whole group, nearly trotting as soon as they get through the churchyard gate. They struggle through the wind, and there is hope. Hot air welters from both chimneys, and they can see that Sister Hanna has put more wood in the kitchen stove. Now she greets them in the hallway. “You poor dears, you’re frozen solid. Come in. Come in where it’s warm. I’ve made coffee and tea.”

  Mona adds her own, “Come in, come in.” Quickly, she hangs up her coat, and now that her icy outer wraps are off, Lillus can come up in her arms. Everyone is now concerned about Sanna, who gets wrapped in a blanket and placed in a chair where she falls asleep of exhaustion and distress before she’s had even a sip of hot currant juice or had time to bite into a raisin roll. “Poor little darling! Dreadfully thin!” says Grandma Kummel, and Mona hears the criticism—can’t she see to it that Sanna gets enough to eat? Lillus, on the other hand, still has her baby fat, she’s had a good long nap and is wide awake and happy, tries sitting in everyone’s lap and likes Frej’s best. When the mawkish Kummels see her enthroned in his arms, they get tears in their eyes. Quite clearly, she chooses the person most like her Papa!

  Hanna has set the table and made everything ready, even warmed the rolls in the oven. “You’ve saved our lives!” they tell her, thinking but not saying: but not his, irretrievably dead. They look stealthily at Mona, who sits at the table drinking coffee and eating a roll as if it were a job. Poor, poor Mona, how can they reach her? How make her see that she’s not alone, that she’s surrounded by people who want nothing more than to support and comfort her?

  There are many burning questions they need to discuss before they have to leave the next morning. Father Leonard, who has been quiet far too long, begins to discuss the funeral—the splendid speeches that warmed the soul and were comforting in a wonderful way. The fantastic flowers, in the middle of winter, way out here on the Örlands, an absolute miracle. The gripping expressions of sorrow from the Örlanders, the hymns they sang straight from the heart. The sheer number of condolence messages, greetings, letters and telegrams. Moving and touching, every one of them. They lie in great piles on the sideboard …

  “Yes, please have a look,” Mona interrupts. “Feel free to go through them and read them. There are so many we’ll have to put a thank-you notice in the newspapers. It will be impossible to write a personal note to all of them. Although I mean to write to many of them, when things have become a little quieter.”

  And then Martha Kummel can no longer control herself. “What are you actually going to do? Eventually, you’ll have to think about moving. Where will you find the strength?”

  Mona is no frail little widow, and there is a gleam of triumph in her eye when she answers. “There’s no hurry about that. They probably won’t send a new priest until next summer. Until then, Berg will come out from Mellom now and then. He says in any case that I have the right to a year of grace and that I can live in the parsonage until February next year. So I think I’ll stay here, at least over the summer.”

  Sensibly and rationally reasoned, and no problem talking to Mona as long as you stick to practical, concrete subjects.

  Martha Kummel goes on. “That sounds sensible. You’ll have time to think things over and look around for a job. You’re lu
cky you have an education. But don’t be hasty, you maybe have more immediate things to think about.”

  Fishhooks out, but she doesn’t bite. What Martha Kummel is referring to is what’s being discussed in every home on the Örlands and by many well-informed people on the mainland— what if the widow is with child! It’s not unthinkable. If the child is born in the summer or the autumn, that would put two years between the baby and Lillus. In fact, it’s not only possible, it is more than likely, and in many homes they already know that it will be a boy and that his name will be Peter. Mona knows very well what Martha is thinking, and she doesn’t intend to honour her with a reply. “Of course there’s a lot to think about!” she says, ready for a fight. “How else am I supposed to get through this?”

  Silence, but Mrs Hellén, who is experienced at filling awkward pauses, smiles pleasantly. “No, there is really no rush about making decisions. I’ve already told Mona that of course she’s welcome to come live with us while a decision crystallizes as to what she’s going to do. She can take her time looking at the teaching positions that are advertised, and then we’ll see how it goes.”

  Naturally, Martha Kummel will take the first opportunity to waylay Karin Hellén and ask her whether Mona is pregnant, and naturally Mrs Hellén will look at her blankly, express astonishment, and say, “At least she hasn’t said anything to me.” Mrs Hellén is content to say no more, whereas her old friend Mrs Kummel has already expressed her suspicions, bordering on certainty, to a number of the funeral guests who discreetly asked her the burning question.

  This wall of resistance that meets every effort at a more intimate relationship with the disobliging widow creates despair among the in-laws—near panic when they realize that they leave tomorrow without a breakthrough having taken place. It comes from the heart when they say, “You can always turn to us!” And “Don’t forget that the girls have a Grandma and Grandpa Kummel!” but their words bounce back at them like platitudes and empty phrases. Ringing hollow to a heart that is closed, frozen to the core.

  The verger comes into the hallway, not wanting to come all the way in, just to report that he and Signe are going to do the milking. “Thank you. I really don’t have the strength this evening. It’s been such a day.” Mona stands there isolated from everyone, from the girls who must be put to bed, from the funeral guests who must be fed, from tomorrow’s breakfast that must be prepared. The sandwiches that must be made for their journeys. How could you leave me so? Thinks, very quickly, of the frozen dead body in the wood coffin beneath a layer of cold soil, in the storm that blows and blows. How cold it is, although they feed the fires steadily.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  WHEN SANNA WAKES UP, it is only to be sent to bed. But first she gets hot soup and the warm juice and bun she didn’t have time to eat before she fell asleep. Then she falls asleep again, and when she wakes up in the morning, everyone is still there. She knows that Papa is dead and that there’s been a funeral, which is why everyone has come, but she remembers nothing of the funeral except that she wondered how Papa, who is so big, could fit into the little chest on the floor. She can’t remember Papa either, except as a flash when she looks at Frej.

  Much more than about Papa, they’re all talking about Valvoja, the pilot boat that will take the funeral guests to Mellom. From there they’ll travel on towards Åbo or the main island of Åland. First they need to eat, and Mama warms up the fish soup. The stove warms the whole kitchen if the door is kept shut, and Sanna sits on a stool in the warmth while Lillus is carried from window to window by Uncle Frej, who deplores this unending wind that makes poor Ingrid so seasick. If Sanna says nothing, people stop talking to her, and if she sits still, the cat comes for company.

  There is then no end to their departure. They say goodbye and goodbye and goodbye, and instead of going they start talking about something else and then they say goodbye and goodbye all over again. Mama dresses Lillus and Sanna and herself and goes down to the church dock with them to get them to go, but the whole time, those in front come running back because they have something else on their hearts. Only Mrs Hellén stays steadily on course, and Sanna walks beside her. Lillus has deserted and gone over to the Kummels, who repeat delightedly that she and they are birds of a feather. This makes Sanna angry. Lillus isn’t a feather, although she’s certainly a bird, a chirpy little bird! The Coast Guard is at the dock to take everyone the short distance to the steamboat pier, where the Valvoja lies waiting.

  Now they have to hurry, but oh, it’s awful to see poor Mona and her fatherless girls standing alone and abandoned on the dock. How will they manage? What will become of them? If only the distance wasn’t so great! If only there was something they could do! But the widow has made it clear that it’s unnecessary for her in-laws to stay longer, and when Martha Kummel asks Karin Hellén if she ought to stay anyway, Mrs Hellén, with her impenetrable smile, says no, if she understands Mona correctly, she needs time to collect herself and regain her balance.

  “But isn’t she afraid of being alone here?” Charlotte wonders. She herself has not dared go out after dark, what with the churchyard so close and the howling wind that sounds like she doesn’t know what. “I wouldn’t want to,” she says, and no, they can all see that, but Mona isn’t like Charlotte. She would be happy to see the dead rise and walk again. To set him down at the table, brush the soil from his clothes, serve him tea and buttered bread, wonder how everything got so crazy—how would that be frightening?

  There is something about farewells, boats putting out, that makes you want to cry with regret even though it’s a relief when the group is finally on board and no longer has to be provided with meals. There they stand, three small, dark figures in the fading February light. Mona and Sanna wave, Lillus, in Mona’s arms, cries loudly and stretches out her arms towards Frej, wouldn’t hesitate to leave everything behind and go with him. Everyone on the boat is crying, except Mrs Hellén and the Coast Guardsmen. Brage waves energetically and calls out cheerily, “Just let us know if you need anything, and we’ll be here in a jiffy!”

  Goodbye and goodbye and whew. If she herself turns to go, the guests can go into the cabin and get out of the wind. On Valvoja they’ll be comfortable and can lie down flat so they don’t get seasick, Mona explains to Sanna as they walk. Up on the steps they forget to look towards the churchyard, and Mona opens the weather-beaten door. Inside it’s like an abandoned gypsy camp, the air thick with Frej’s and grandfather Hellén’s tobacco smoke, but at least it’s peaceful. “Oh, how nice,” says Mona, perfectly serious. “I have to start cleaning up, but first let’s sit down and have some coffee. And some bread and butter would taste wonderful! And the buns were good, weren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Sanna says, feeling a little happier. Everything is more like usual. Mona has retained the Hellén custom of really enjoying the refreshments only when the guests have gone.

  Mona spends two days getting everything in order. The verger comes the first evening and offers his help, but now that the guests are out of the house, Mona can handle the milking perfectly well by herself. She puts Lillus in her playpen where she can toddle about without hurting herself, and Sanna is so sensible that she needn’t worry about her. It’s fortunate that the girls can keep each other company. It would be harder with only one.

  It’s especially lucky that Lillus has Sanna. As long as the house was full of people, no one noticed that she could no longer talk. In the midst of all the people, no one paid attention to the fact that she just waved her arms and squealed and babbled and shrieked. There is nothing left of all her many words and complete sentences, and Sanna has to start from beginning and teach her what everything is called. There is a lot that Lillus has lost. One day Sanna notices that she has also lost her good baby smell. That’s why Mama doesn’t like her as much any more, for she’s stopped calling Lillus her rosebud but just says she’s a filthy little piglet. And it’s true, because nowadays Lillus just smells like a grubby child and nothing else.r />
  Nature loves Lillus. It comes running up with a wet kiss and a hug the moment she comes down the steps. Big embrace— little piglet! And Lillus loves nature back, mud and water, grass and cow shit. A horrible child, the way she looks.

  Nature tries different strategies with the parsonage girls. Sanna stretches out and grows taller and thinner, as if nature is determined that she not weigh one unnecessary gramme while at the same time giving her perspective and control. In Lillus’s case, just the opposite. She stops growing in height but increases in girth, as if nature’s plan was to see that she’ll never have far to fall when she’s knocked down.

  Later in the spring, when they can spend more time outdoors, they are often seen on Church Isle—tall Sanna followed by her short, stocky satellite. They chatter constantly, for it’s Sanna’s responsibility to teach Lillus to talk. It’s an entertaining process. Whenever she learns a new word, Lillus laughs and takes a little jump so the knowledge will distribute itself evenly throughout her body. Lillus is fun because she’s surprisingly cheerful so much of the time, considering how little she’s able to do and how little she knows. That doesn’t seem to bother her much, and although Sanna sees it as a duty and a job to look after Lillus and keep her busy, she often thinks it’s great fun to be with her as she plays.

  Mama has a lot to do. Writes letter after letter to thank all the people who have written letter after letter. She has the animals to take care of and all her household chores. She goes back and forth in the kitchen and is angry at everyone who asks about her future plans. But mostly people do their wondering in the villages, for there aren’t many who come to Church Isle now, except to services, which are held every other week. Then everyone looks at her, top to bottom and back up again. Mama is so vexed she turns red in the face. It’s the reported pregnancy that’s behind it, the posthumous son, a phantom that never takes physical form no matter how much they look. It’s the loose-tongued Martha, her busybody mother-in-law, who has started this groundless rumour, which has leaped like wildfire from the Örlands to every Swedish-speaking community in Finland, where this son is already born and christened.